


A Matter of Convenience

by dckgraysons



Category: (여자)아이들 | (G)I-DLE
Genre: Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Chronic Pain, F/F, Flirty Shuhua, Flowers Make You Happy, Injury Recovery, Light Angst, Tsundere Soojin, Weird things bought at 3AM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25974169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dckgraysons/pseuds/dckgraysons
Summary: Soojin works the night shift on Fridays; it's her favourite work day. She starts to look forward to them even more when a stranger starts coming in at 3 a.m to buy...napkins?
Relationships: Seo Soojin/Yeh Shuhua
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	A Matter of Convenience

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first (G)-IDLE fic and only my second fic ever! Rated M for future chapters. It's coming in installments so please keep an eye out if you enjoy it, and also please leave a comment! It helps a lot!  
> Dedicated to my love, S, who inspired this lil work.

The night shift was Soojin’s favourite, although the A/C circulated stale, warm air that didn’t help Soojin feel any cooler in the sticky summer evenings, and the fluorescent lights bathed everything in a sickly yellow glow. Hardly anyone ever came in, and if they did it was only for something like a bottle of soju that she could scan quickly and get over with, leaving her with more time to read comics, listen to music or just do whatever she wanted to. Her manager didn’t care, really, as long as she was respectful to customers and didn’t steal.

Soojin was spending the remainder of her six hour shift watching YouTube videos of street dancers busking on the streets of Seoul, wiping down the surfaces and sweeping between videos. Her only two customers for the night had been a passerby after cigarettes and Mrs. Kim, the old lady who lived in one of the flats above who always gave Soojin a boiled sweet after she’d paid for a tin of cat food, citing the fact that Jelly the tabby had a late night craving for tuna. Soojin kept the ancient sweets under the register and hadn’t eaten any since the first one she’d been given, having learned the hard way.

Soojin was content with the slow pace of the night, and she reclined slightly in her plastic chair, putting her feet up on an overturned mop bucket. Four more performances played before the bell above the door rang.

‘Welcome!’ Soojin called out, not taking her eyes off her phone. She only had twenty seconds left of this video, and the closing choreography of this group always impressed.

She didn’t expect to raise her head and find a girl dumping twenty packets of instant ramen in front of the register, all a different flavour. Soojin tried to school her wide eyes back into a face of neutrality and stood up to begin scanning, pulling a paper bag from a hook on the wall.

‘I have my own bag,’ the customer said, offering a tote patterned with daisies to Soojin. Taking the bag, Soojin eyed the mountain of ramen in front of her.

‘I don’t think they’ll all fit in here,’ Soojin said.

‘But a paper bag will rip in the rain!’ The customer replied, a small pout on her lips. It puffed out her slim face in a way that Soojin thought made her look like a squirrel.

Soojin leaned to the side to look out the glass door behind the customer. ‘It’s not raining.’

‘It’s supposed to.’

‘Are you sure?’

The customer nodded, her long hair slipping down in its ponytail. Her outfit of a baggy tee, shorts, and slides with white sports socks didn’t support her argument of rain, but Soojin decided that it was best not to argue with new customers at three in the morning. Instead, she quietly huffed a sigh out her nose and set to work scanning and then stacking the noodles in the tote, laying them flat against the bottom and wedging them upright along the inside.

A minute or two passed before Soojin handed her strange customer her bag, stuffed to the brim with noodles. ‘All done,’ she said, feeling a smile pull at her lips at the strangeness of the situation, ‘that’ll be ten thousand won. Enjoy your noodles.’

The customer paid and heaved her bag onto her shoulder, before replying, ‘Oh, they’re not for me. Thanks, though. Have a nice night.’

Soojin watched her walk out into the warm night air with wide eyes and a laugh at her lips, shaking her head when she caught herself focusing on the swing of the girl’s shiny, black ponytail through the window.

‘Beats ringing up more tuna for Jelly,’ Soojin muttered to herself as she pressed ‘play next video’.

The rain didn’t arrive ‘til Soojin was at home, watching the drops race against her window as she climbed into bed.

The rest of the week passed without change. Soojin spent her time at home in front of a fan, her skin sheened with sweat, lamenting the summer’s humidity. She found herself cursing the store’s ancient A/C system when she walked into her shift on the Friday night, her limbs feeling heavy as she waded through the thick air.

Too hot to focus, Soojin struggled to organize the stock in the back room for a full hour before giving up. The morning shift wouldn’t take it personally. Hopefully.

Leaning over the counter with her forehead pressed to the cool steel countertop, watching her breath fog against it, Soojin listened to the sluggish ticking of the clock on the wall and the sporadic barking of dogs outside. She thought about what she’d be doing right now if she hadn’t dropped out of university; would she be rehearsing a dance for a show right now, hating the heat even more but powering through with the help of the endorphin rush? Would she be out with friends, welcoming the weekend as she saw so many of the people walking past the shop doing? She closed her eyes and ignored the ghost of an ache in her knee as she pushed herself away from the counter. No use thinking about that now.

The clock didn’t tick any faster, but time seemed to pick up as Soojin was met with a surprising steady stream of customers looking for cheap sandwiches to soak up the alcohol they’d drank or bottles of water they thought would save them from a hangover. Grateful for the distraction from the heat, she dealt with her tipsy customers as best she could, smiling politely even when they passed her a fifty thousand won note for a thousand won bag of chips.

When the rush died down, it was already three a.m. Soojin felt more tired than she usually did – whether it was due to the heat, or the effort of so much polite socialization that she was usually able to avoid on the night shift, she didn’t know – and she sank deeper into her chair as the door opened again.

‘Welcome,’ Soojin said, her voice rough with fatigue. She looked up at and smiled as she saw that it was the same girl from last week, smiling back and saying hello. She looked just as warm as Soojin was even with the night finally ( _finally_ ) beginning to cool, a flush sitting high on her cheeks, and she fidgeted with the hem of her t-shirt dress as she walked through the stationary aisle. Soojin wished she was wearing something similar; her work shirt was a thick acrylic blend, and its polo collar was unforgiving.

After a few moments of looking, she turned to Soojin at the register.

‘Can I help you today?’ Soojin asked, expectant.

‘Yes,’ the girl said, shifting her tote bag on her shoulder, ‘do you have any wrapping paper?’

‘Wrapping paper?’ Soojin repeated, glancing at the clock. Yep, it was still three am.

‘Or anything I can use as wrapping paper!’

‘We don’t sell wrapping paper, sorry. I can maybe order some in, if you’d like to come back another time.’

‘No, it’s fine! Please, don’t worry about it. Oh!’ The girl said as she headed to the shelf of disposable kitchenware, picking up a packet of paper napkins, before walking to the register and putting them down for Soojin to scan, ‘I’ll just use these.’

Soojin looked at them. They were covered in poop emojis.

‘I can put in an order for wrapping paper right now.’

The girl’s short laugh filled the store. ‘These will do, trust me!’

‘Okay then,’ Soojin said, scanning the napkins and passing them to the girl as she paid. The girl tucked them into her daisy tote and waved goodbye. She had small, feminine hands, and Soojin again watched the sway of her hair as she left. ‘See you soon.’

The next week, Soojin was waiting for her.

As soon as she took over the shift from her harried coworker (she knew that he had kids to get home to, and Mrs. Kim had kept him talking about the benefits of cod liver oil for an hour, apparently) she found herself looking up when the breeze blew the door from its hinge, or when she heard a laugh from a passerby.

Soojin grabbed the mop when she caught herself fussing with her bangs for the third time in as many minutes. She shook the hair out of her eyes and got to work.

At three o’clock, when the floor had been mopped, the stock counted and then recounted, and an order for frozen food had been put in, Soojin sat in her chair with her back straight and pretended not to watch the door. The phone in her hand was playing a lyric video for an English song that she liked, and when Soojin realized that she’s missed the first forty-five seconds she gave up, leaning back and heaving a sigh. She stretched her leg out under the counter, wincing when the muscle pulled just so.

This wouldn’t end well for her – she knew that. Somehow, she found she didn’t care all that much.

So when the girl walked through the door and the ringing bell sounded exciting, rather than headache-inducing, Soojin fixed her bangs again and said—

‘Welcome,’ with a smile.

‘Hello,’ the girl smiled, pushing her hair out of her face from her forehead, ‘do you sell flowers?’

Soojin pointed to the window, where bouquets were lined up in a colourful, if slightly wilted row. The girl nodded gratefully and walked over to the foliage, her slides squeaking on the clean floor. Soojin pretended to count the change in the register as she waited.

The girl lay three bouquets into the crook of her arm, careful not to crush the petals as she walked to meet Soojin at the register.

‘No daisies?’ Soojin asked, nodding at tote on the counter good-humoredly as the other girl’s brows furrowed in question.

‘Oh,’ the girl laughed, ‘not today. I’m after bright flowers.’

Soojin held one of the bouquets up, admiring the flecked fuchsia and lilac blooms. She hadn’t realized they even had such flowers in the store. A lot can pass you by when you see it every day, she assumed. ‘You certainly found them.’

Holding the flowers out for the girl to take, she blinked slowly when a reply didn’t come. Instead, the girl was looking at her, her eyes flicking from the flowers to Soojin. ‘They suit you,’ she said after a beat. Her pale fingers brushed Soojin’s own as she took the flowers from her outstretched hand.

Soojin cleared her throat, murmuring a polite, ‘Thank you,’ scanning the other two bouquets with speed.

Soojin could still feel the flutter in her chest after they exchanged goodbyes and good nights.

At the end of her shift, she hesitated and the door before turning around and buying herself a bunch of golden sunflowers.

Soojin should have called off work.

As soon as she felt the tell-tale twinge in her knee, twisting down her calf like a snake down a branch, she should have taken her painkillers and laid in bed like she knew she needed to. Her physiotherapist, Minnie, would kill her if she knew that Soojin was planning on standing for most of the next eight hours. The only problem was that it was Friday.

She wanted to see the girl that she’d been calling Daisy in her head.


End file.
